Lightning talks are fast paced, short presentations often sprinkled with humor and intrigue. The popular 5-minute talks present topics that are interesting to C++ programmers and are open to speakers at all experience levels.

If you’ve never seen one before checkout some of our previous lightning talks on our YouTube channel. They cover a single topic, start with the good stuff, and end making a point. Anyone can do one, but be sure to practice because 5 minutes goes by incredibly fast. If there’s one technique you wish everyone knew, one little known fact that should be well known, one tool that makes your life easier every day, or a collection of little things that you can fit into 5 minutes, you can propose a lighting talk, and you should.

Anyone can submit a talk, you don’t need to be a conference speaker (or even a registered attendee). We are looking for talks from experienced speakers, but also new speakers and students. To submit a talk, just email open-content@cppcon.org and tell us what you want to talk about and a little bit about yourself (one sentence is fine). Even if you don’t plan to submit, plan to attend, it’s sure to be fun!

Just like last year, CppCon will offer Open Content sessions in the early morning, over lunch, and in the evening.

Open Content is just that, open! Attendees and regular program speakers alike can propose sessions on anything that interests them. These might feature a single facilitator leading a room through an exercise, activity or demo, a panel of 3-5 people taking questions from the room, a “hackathon” on a specific project, or an open conversation among the whole room. The projector is available for slides or public note taking.

Open Content is designed for flexibility so that a “Birds of a Feather” talk may be proposed even after the conference has begun. A speaker who gets a lot of post-talk questions may agree to host a Q&A session in the Open Content time. An attendee inspired by a session may host a session to explore a topic further or start on a group implementation of something.

To propose a session, simply email open-content@cppcon.org and tell us the title, description, and speaker(s)/moderators(s). If you have time constraints such as “after a specific session” or “not on the same day as a specific session” let us know in the email.

These sessions will be open in another way too – Open Content does not require conference registration. That’s right, everyone who is in the area is welcome to come and join us for all the early morning/evening/lunch sessions, including proposing or leading a session. This is part of our goal to be an inclusive conference for the entire C++ community.

For now, please email your submissions as soon as you can so that our planning work can get underway. See you in Bellevue!

 

The full program for CppCon 2016 has been published! This year we have over 100 regular sessions, in addition to panels, lightning talks and some awesome keynote and plenary speakers. We’ll have six concurrent tracks running for most of the conference.

Speaking of keynotes, it’s our pleasure to announce that Bjarne Stroustrup, the creator of C++, will be returning to CppCon to give the opening keynote, The Evolution of C++: Past, Present, and Future:

This is a philosophical talk. It deals with ideals, aims, and ways of approximating those. It deals with practical constraints and risks. It gives short examples. It presents a perspective of what drives the evolution of C++. What is C++ and what it must become over the next years for its success to continue? This involves both social and technical points. Towards the end, I discuss the direction of C++ future evolution, give some opinions, point to urgently needed new features, and discuss how to manage until they are part of the standard.

We also have a special treat for swag-loving attendees – we’ll be selecting the CppCon 2016 t-shirt design via an open contest. The t-shirts are included with Early Bird registration, and are also available as a separate purchase when registering online.

— Bryce Adelstein Lelbach

CppCon is pleased to announce its first Poster Session, with the objective to foster conversation around the multitude of exciting projects, approaches, design patterns, and integrations that the C++ community is engaged in. We invite developers in industry, academia, and beyond, to express ideas, demo projects and work with a strong C++ focus, in poster format. Poster submission deadline is July 17, 2016. See the Poster Submission Page for more information.

CppCon is the annual, week-long face-to-face gathering for the entire C++ community. The conference is organized by the C++ community for the community and so we invite you to present.

Have you learned something interesting about C++, maybe a new technique possible in C++11/14? Or perhaps you have implemented something cool related to C++, maybe a new C++ library? If so, consider sharing it with other C++ enthusiasts by giving a talk at CppCon 2016. Submissions deadline is May 22 with decisions sent by June 26. For topic ideas, possible formats, and submission instructions, see the Submissions page.

If you would like to attend CppCon 2015, see great C++ content, and meet our speakers and attendees, but a week’s registration doesn’t fit your time or money budget, consider volunteering.

We are looking for volunteers to help run the conference. We need people to help assemble registration packets and badges, register attendees, assist speakers with Audio/Video, and in general be on hand to make things run smoothly. In exchange, we’ll see to it that you’ll spend at least half of your time in sessions. It would be great if you could join us for the whole week, but if you can only make it for one or two days, we can work with that. This is a particularly great opportunity for locals with an interest in C++. If you are interested or would like more information, please email volunteers@cppcon.org.

The response to last year’s Call for Lightning Talks was so strong that this year we are adding a second evening session, so plan on joining us for the fun on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings.

Lightning talks are 5 or 15 minutes talks on any topic that will be interesting to C++ programmers. Expect fast paced fun with talks that are funny or intriguing from speakers at all experience levels.

If you’ve never seen a lightning talk before checkout some of last year’s on our YouTube channel. They cover a single topic and they start with the good stuff and make a point. Anyone can do one, but be sure to practice because 5 minutes goes by incredibly fast and 15 minutes isn’t much easier. If there’s one technique you wish everyone knew, one little known fact that should be well known, one tool that makes your life easier every day, or a collection of little things that you can fit into 5 or 15 minutes, you can propose a lighting talk, and you should.

Anyone can submit a talk, you don’t need to be a conference speaker (or even a registered attendee). We are looking for talks from experienced speakers, but also new speakers and students. To submit a talk, just email open-content@cppcon.org and tell us what you want to talk about, what length you need (5 or 15 minutes), and a little bit about yourself (one sentence is fine). Even if you don’t plan to submit, plan to attend, it’s sure to be fun!